Split Questionnaire Design 1

Session Details

Over the last ten years, many larger surveys migrated to mixed-mode survey designs including web as a survey mode. In recent years, access to web has diversified rapidly and a variety of devices exist, both fixed and mobile. Online surveys now face a range of devices that they may discourage, accept or encourage. Such decisions depend on the features of surveys and the devices. Three prominent device features are screen size, navigation and timing. Devices can be small as smartphones and large as smart TV's. Navigation can be through touchscreen, to mouse and keyboard. Timing refers to the moment and place the devices are used.
It is generally believed that smartphones demand for a shorter duration of the survey, although empirical evidence is mostly restricted to break-off rates.
This session is about designs that attempt to shorten survey questionnaires without deleting modules for all sample units. So-called split questionnaire designs (SQD) allocate different sections of the questionaire to different (random) subsamples. These SQD are not at all new and have been suggested already several decades ago. However, there never was a sufficiently strong business case to implement them. With the emergence of mobile devices, this business case seems to be strong.
SQD affects questionnaire design and data analysis. The (planned) missing parts of the qustonaire need to be selected in a sophisticated way acknowledging both questionnaire logic and strength of associations between survey variables. Imputation techniques are a natural option but can be quite advanced for some users.
In the session, we invite papers that address one or more aspects of SQD, ranging from questionnaire design to imputation approaches.